Selling your home for cash is a lot different from selling it on the traditional market. When you sell through a real estate agent, you’re usually working with a buyer who is going to secure a mortgage loan for something fairly close to the price you’re asking for your house.

When you sell your house for cash, you’re skipping this multi-month process and getting money directly within a month or less. Cash buyers usually pay less than the asking price of a home, but that offer typically comes with unique advantages. You’ll need to view this offer differently in order to determine whether or not you’re getting a good deal.

Look at Your Local Real Estate Market

In slow markets or areas where most people don’t desire to live, homes almost never sell for their full market value. They might list for that amount, but they’ll wait around on the market until the seller eventually accepts an offer that was lower that what they had originally anticipated.

Don’t look at listing price or average values.

Look at the amount that these properties actually wind up selling for.

If it’s pretty different from what the sellers were asking at first, you can expect a reasonable cash offer on your home to look closer to the final sale number.

Keep in mind that most of those people who sold their homes worked with a real estate agent who took at least 5% (though sometimes more) of the final sale price as commission, so the sellers actually received less than what it appears they received.

If homes aren’t really selling at all, it can be hard to determine how much would constitute a fair offer. You don’t have anything reasonable to compare a cash offer against. When this happens, you’ll need to look at the other factors surrounding your home to make that decision.

If the area market is really that bad, almost any cash offer might feel fair if it fixes your problem.

Consider How Much the Wait is Worth

One of the things that really draws sellers to cash buyers is the speed of the process.

Since cash buyers don’t need to get approved for a mortgage loan, the closing process is a lot quicker. Some potential buyers will wait over a month for a loan decision if they aren’t pre-qualified.

This stalls the seller’s plans to relocate or access the cash they need for something important.

Cash buyers typically reduce the wait in multiple ways – they’re usually willing to purchase properties as-is, and they want to buy quickly.

As soon as you advertise that you’re willing to accept quick cash offers or you directly present your home to someone you know is a cash buyer, these buyers will start to pop up. Some cash buyers aren’t purchasing properties to live in, so they’re a lot less picky about what they’re willing to purchase.

If you want to move quickly, think about how much you’d be willing to pay to do that.

If the offer is 20% less than what you were expecting but it drastically expedites your timeframe, this may be worth it to you when you’re in a hurry. If the home is facing code violations, is unlivable, expensive to maintain, or if you need to move urgently, you might find it worth taking a cut to get things done.

How Much Work Does The Property Need?

If your property needs a lot of work, buyers on the regular market may not be interested in purchasing it. These people want homes that are move-in ready. They might have a hard time getting a mortgage on a property that’s in bad shape, even if they don’t mind fixing it up.

Homes that need a lot of repairs complicate the situation.

Think about how much money it could cause to fix your home.

Is it somewhere in the tens of thousands of dollars to completely overhaul your property?

Do you have that much money available to repair the home on your own?

The offer you receive from a cash buyer will likely deduct the cost of those repairs.

You won’t need to spend that money to make the property appealing – you’ll just take the cash you would have profited anyway.

Most cash buyers will be able to explain their offers, especially if they’re professionals and it is advised that you inquire about any cash offer you receive and how exactly those number were came about to ensure the offer you receive is fair.

They can show you what they need to do and tell you how much it’s going to cost. In the end, it should check out. Properties that are in need of serious help are usually great options for cash buyers and sellers alike who just want the home gone!

Is The Cash Buy Rescuing You?

Homeowners in dire situations will turn to quick cash buyers to save them in an emergency.

This is most common with foreclosure, or when foreclosure is imminent.

Since foreclosure sticks like glue to your credit report for a long time and is nearly impossible to work off, homeowners try their best to avoid the foreclosure being completed. They do this by finding a buyer with cash who can work quickly to complete the sale before the lender auctions off the home.

In these situations, any offer that satisfies the lender and gets the seller out of jeopardy is a good offer. You can’t profit off of the sale of your foreclosure home – all of that money needs to go directly to the lender anyway. You technically can’t lose.

Professional cash buyers know how to work directly with lenders to come to an agreement about an asking price.

It’s generally advisable to take any offer that will help you meet your requirements and save yourself from foreclosure. These kinds of emergency sales don’t look stunning on your credit report either, but they disappear much quicker and they’re far easier to work off with regular positive activity on your accounts.

“Should I Sell My Home for Cash?”

If your situation is a little offbeat, it might be worth turning to cash buyer. Cash buyers are generally used to solve problems. If you’re not expecting the perfect sale of the perfect home in the perfect market with the perfect agent, a cash buyer might be right for you. SoCal Home Buyers would love to be that cash buyer. We’re ready to close quickly, and we want to make things easy for you.

Can We Buy Your House?

Honest friendly people they show up on time very business like with no costs and escrow in about 30days it was amazing. I was supprised how fast and easy it was and got a fair price for my house as well. Good company.read more

We had many offers but we choose them because of there attitude and personality and they were great with answering questions for us his first time homesellers and we would highly recommend them for you as wellread more

Great people. fantastic. contacted them right before the xmas holiday. thought would not get any reply till new year. LO and behold - had offer next day. after the holidays, stopped by office and took their offer. closed 2 weeks later. they offered a good price, walkthru inspection was easy, and all was done in 30 days of offer. all i can say - awesome. reliable, fair, courteous, and helpful. highly recommend them fort your home sale. quick, simple, fai, easy and most of all painless process of selling. (they handled all the closing and other paperwork).read more

Southern California Home Buyers are very professional and very easy to work with. They give you weekly updates to make sure everyone stays in the loop. You are always able to reach them via phone,text, or email. This transaction has been a great experience for my parent's and I. I would highly recommend them to my friends and family.read more

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From our first phone call everything went well. We actually cancelled
our appt. but Allison called us back & that turned out great. Glad she did.. Escrow
was made painless with the help of a great staff, Kristen, Jaime, & Danielle. This was very helpful as we live 6 hours away. First impressions are important & our
meeting with Gavino to look at the property & explain things set the tone for a very good experience. Many Thanks to the staff for your Hard Work.
Janie & David Belkread more

SCHB is an awsome company. They were there all the time through the whole process. I would highly recommend this organization to anyone that wants efficient results at a bargain price.
Southern California Home Buyers all the way.read more